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Exploring the Swedish Lifestyle:And, which is more important there – Style or Life?By Stephen Henderson
An arresting image, suggestive of the giddiness that occurs in this northern country -- Stockholm is on the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska -- when warm weather finally arrives. As the local saying goes, “you can’t appreciate a Swedish spring, until you’ve lived through a Swedish winter.” Yet, the fiddler on the river, as I came to regard him, also hinted at the cheery way Swedes have of celebrating the beauty in everyday life. To be sure, cheeriness is not the first thing many Americans associate with Sweden. Better known are the Nobel Prizes which will be awarded on December 10 (as they have on this same date – the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death – since 1901) to winners in five fields – physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. Some moviegoers continue to revere the exquisite aloofness of Greta Garbo’s screen presence, or the bleakness of Ingmar Bergman films. Yet, with all due respect to these mighty moments in Swedish culture, the national ethos is better represented these days by the bright, irresistible designs from IKEA, or “Mama Mia!,” the giddy pastiche of ABBA songs that’s a long-running hit on Broadway. “In this country, 80% of people are Lutheran, yet it’s often said that Sweden has a church with no believers, and believers with no church,” observed Agneta Lagercrantz, a journalist with Svenska Dagbladet, a Stockholm newspaper. “If the truth be told, our main religion is worship of nature and being outdoors.” Her point is well taken. The vast majority of Sweden’s territory is forests and lakes, so country life influences the city here, not the other way around. Out for a walk the first afternoon I arrived in Stockholm, I overheard people bragging about the mushrooms and lingonberries they’d picked over the weekend. I saw ladies walking through the park with cross country ski poles in their hands, as if they couldn’t wait for the first snow. Each winter, there is a Viking race in which skaters traverse the frozen waters from Upsala (a university town 60 miles north) into downtown Stockholm. Swedes also hunt moose every fall. Natural predators for these enormous creatures are nearly extinct, so they pose a serious threat to automobile traffic. Swedes are so protective of their distinctively seasonal festivals, holidays, and customs that though their nation is a member of the European Union, the country has eschewed the euro. Instead, the Swedish Kroner consecrates national heroes such as Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), who classified the plant, animal and mineral worlds in his Systema Naturae – a numbingly vast accomplishment perhaps only a Swede would have attempted. Designs for Living
Ambling forth at dusk, I was surprised to see candles burning everywhere: not just in restaurants, either, but at gyms and by the grocery store cash register. Unlike the haughtier styles of Italy and France, or the sometimes alienating artistry of Asia, there is nothing off-putting about the Swedish obsession with beauty. It’s altogether practical. Since you have to drive a car, sit in a chair, or drink juice, Swedes believe these humdrum happenstances might as well involve works of art. “I have designed many water carafes in my life,” said Ingegard Raman, a designer for Orrefors Crystal, who I sat with one morning in her austere studio overlooking a pond. I watched her sketch on pieces of translucent rice paper, one layered on the next like phyllo dough, until a shape she was refining gradually emerged. “Because if I make something beautiful, people will drink more water.” Not to mention buy more carafes. Swedes regard design not only aesthetically, but economically, too. Their country may be large, but it has a small population (9 million people, or about the same as New York City’s.) To build wealth, the country has developed such globally popular brands as Volvo, SAAB, Ericsson telecommunications, or the youthful fashions of H&M stores. It’s no wonder that the “art industry” is referred to with utmost respect in Sweden. As it has been for centuries. Visit the National Museum, and you’ll find the entire second floor devoted to shapes, patterns and ornament which prove how a design culture helped determine the country’s international stature. At the end of this fascinating exhibit, I gulped while standing before a boxy table, built from humble particle board, and designed in 1979 by Jan Hellzen for IKEA. This same table, which I’d purchased not too long ago for $14.99, holds up my TV and DVD player. Here it was again…but curated. The Log Island
There are also more museums in Stockholm per capita, than anywhere in the world: history museums, art, food, music, and botanical museums. The Vasa museum is built around a resurrected 16th century battle ship. There is a Pippi Longstocking theme park (based on Astrid Lindgren’s fictional wild child) and Skansen, where you can go see how Swedes lived in times past. This cultural diversification is best explained by the fact that Swedes love to form small groups around something – wine, sewing, the hunt – they find amusing. Stockholm is built on 14 islands that lie at the intersection of Lake Malaren and the Baltic Sea. On the Baltic Side, a vast archipelago is arrayed where the wealthy have summer homes and enjoy sailing expeditions. In a city of 850,000 people, it’s estimated that there are an astonishing 200,000 pleasure boats. Such a passion for sea-faring is doubtless a holdover from when Sweden was a nautical power. Swedish Vikings plundered Russia from 850 to 1100, and Finland belonged to Sweden for nearly 500 years mostly because it was easy sail away. Stockholm, however, wasn’t always the capitol of Sweden. This honor belongs to another town, Sigtuna, which was sacked in 1168 by raiders from nearby Estonia. Terrified citizens secreted what little silver they’d managed to hide into a hollow log, which they floated down river with plans to relocate wherever the wood came ashore. Eventually, this spot was dubbed Stockholm, or “log island.” As the settlement grew beyond Gamla Stan, the “old town,” other islands were named for their relation to it. To the south is Sodermalm, or “southern suburb,” which has a bohemian air of funky shops, bars and restaurants (the Rival Hotel is located here.) Norrmalm, or the “northern suburb,” directly above Gamla Stan is Stockholm’s main business and shopping center. Don’t miss this area’s Kulterhuset, a vast arts complex, which includes, among other curious delights, a comic book library. Gamla Stan’s highest point, Stortorget, is a collection of 16th and 17th century houses surrounding a main square which was once was a combination grocery store, job center and gossip grapevine. This square is now home to the Alfred Nobel Museum, where a track system runs across the ceiling, carrying by photographs and brief descriptions of all the laureates honored over the last century. So quiet and dignified is this space, one almost forgets that dynamite was the source of Alfred Nobel’s fortune. I pondered this guns-into-butter irony while eating lunch nearby. My appetizer was three types of herring – pickled, in mustard, and with crème fraiche and dill -- then (what else?) Kottbullar, or Swedish meatballs. They were just as rubbery and flavorless as the ones my Mother used to make, a realization that made me somehow proud. Dessert was the real prize – small cylinders of yellow cake iced with chocolate and vanilla marzipan. Called damm sugare, or “dust suckers,” they’re shaped like tiny Electrolux vacuum cleaners, yet another Swedish design. Walking on Glass
Driving through the dense forests here, I had a strong blast of deja-vu, and wasn’t sure why. The fir trees rise tall and perfectly straight, their trunks bare of branches, but bursting into a plume of green at the top. There is a profusion of lakes, wooded right up to their shores. Every few miles, I’d pass an identical farm house, always painted red with white trim, a thin wisp of smoke rising from the stone chimney. Everything was neat as a pin. It looked like an Electrolux had been rolled over these front yards. Suddenly, I knew what this territory looked like: Minnesota! This seemed wonderfully odd, as it was from this part of Sweden that nearly 25% of the local population emigrated to America in the late 19th century – many of whom settled in what would later become Minneapolis. If this phenomenon intrigues you, by all means read Vilhelm Moberg’s novel of 1949, The Emigrants, a harrowing tale of the poor farmer Karl Oscar and his long-suffering wife Kristina. So beloved is this narrative by Swedish-Americans, a statue of this fictional couple stands in Rochester, Minnesota. What saved Smalands from utter devastation was glass making, which began here in 1742 when a factory named KostaBoda opened its doors. The first glass was crude “bull’s eye” windows (so-called because of their bump at the center) and medicine bottles. As industrialization developed, the affluence of Sweden’s middle classes increased, as did demand for glass. Made of sand and potash, glass is believed to have been discovered nearly 6,000 years ago by Egyptian or Mesopotamian potters. Molten glass glows a hot orange, and is scooped out of its vat, blown like a bubble, then manipulated with wooden forms and, nowadays, wet newspaper. It takes seven people to make one wine glass. Their choreographed movements are all the more remarkable, because while passing around sticky fire, most wear shorts and sandals. Over a million people from all over the world come to visit these factories each year in the Kingdom of Crystal, making it one of Sweden’s top tourist attractions. Glass making is the closest you’ll ever get to seeing alchemy, so it’s a technique around which mysteries and superstitions tend to gather. For instance, when I talked to Bertil Vallien, a renowned designer at Kosta-Boda, he told me the bizarre story of Karolinna Olsson. She was a 13-year-old who at the end of the 19th century, slipped on the ice in the nearby town of Okno, hit her head, and went into a coma for over three decades, finally waking in 1908. Vallien hinted that during Olson’s long sleep, she was like glass: there, yet not there. Present, but absent. That ice, a substance to which glass is frequently compared, was the cause of her coma only compounds the metaphor. When glass was melted over burning wood, fires were stoked all night. Townsfolk and vagabonds would gather after dark, warm themselves, and tell tales while their food cooked in the flames. This custom lives on today in something called a hyttsill, where tourists can eat dinner in a glass factory after hours. Sausage and herring is prepared in wet newspaper, and when the paper catches fire, chow’s on. The hyttsill I attended was an awkward, yet hilarious affair. I was seated with a few American ladies – all connoisseurs of crystal -- and probably a hundred men visiting from the Ukraine. I don’t know how long these guys were away from home, but they looked longingly at my new friends. I vaguely feared the Ukrainians would toss me – their “protector,” the women kept nervously joking – into the fire, along with the smoldering sausages. As it happened, they quickly got so drunk on schnapps, that the only punishment they inflicted was the bellowing of sentimental songs much-beloved in the former Soviet Union. An Island in the SunThe next day, I drove on to Oland, a long island off Sweden’s southeastern coast. Oland gets more sun than any spot in the country, so it’s sometimes referred to as the “Swedish Riviera.” People have lived or visited here for thousands of years. In addition to fantastically scenic camping sites and beaches, there are windmills, Viking burial grounds, and the ruins of a castle, Borgholm’s Slott, the oldest part of which dates back to the 9th century. In summertime, Oland boasts rare flowers, such as blue, purple and red orchids so plentiful, they literally carpet the fields. I’m told the best time of year to visit is at the end of June, during Scandanavia’s famed “Northern Lights,” when the sun never seems to set. A maypole is raised, people dance around, and there’s drinking for days. Sadly, I was too late for these festivities. But when I dined at Olond’s Halltorp Inn, I toasted this fascinating place with fragrant gin made from elderberry flowers that grew on the island. Josef Weichl is a nationally-renowned chef, and the meal he prepared — an asparagus salad, and veal sautéed with local mushrooms -- was magnificent. I lingered after dinner, watching a guy at an adjoining table enjoy his coffee, the “Old Swedish” way. He poured the fluid into his saucer to cool it, chomped down on a lump of hard sugar, and then politely sipped through his clenched teeth. Imagine that. In Sweden, even drinking a cup of coffee can be a celebration. When You GoWhen dialing telephone numbers in Sweden from the United States, dial 011-46, and then the numbers listed below. LodgingHotel Rival, Mariatorget 3, P.O. Box 17525, Stockholm
118 91. Tel. 8-545-789-00. www.rival.se Langholmer Hotel, Langholmsmuren 20, P.O. Box 9116,
Stockholm 102 72. Tel. 8-725 85-00.
www.langholmen.com DiningPontus in the Green House, Osterlanggatan 17,
Stockholm, 8-545-273-00. Tranan, Karlborgsvagen 14, Stockholm, 8-527-281-00.
P.M., Storgatan 22-24, Vaxjo (southern Sweden),
470-700-444. Hyttsill, Kosta Boda, (southern Sweden), 478-500-00.
ActivitiesNobel Museum, Stortorget, Stockholm, 8-23-25-06, www.nobel.se Opened in 2001 to commemorate the Nobel Prize’s first 100 years. The Historical Museum. Narvavagen 13-17, Stockholm, 8
519-556-00. www.historiska.se Vasa Museum, Galarvarvsvagen 14, Stockholm,
8-519-548-00. www.vasamuseet.se Larsson Korgmakare, Kakbrinken 11-A, Stockholm,
8-205-503. Job’s Fabric, Stora Nygatan 19, Stockholm, 8-209-816.
Guided Tours of Crystal Factories, Southern Sweden.
For more information, contact Kosta Boda,
www.kostaboda.se, or Orrefors,
www.orrefors.se. The Swedish Emigrant Museum, Vilhelm Mobergs Gata 4,
Vaxjo (Southern Sweden), 470-201-20.
www.svenskaemigrantinstitutet.g.se |
TM
The Rival is a smart new boutique hotel in Stockholm
that’s partly owned by Benny Andersson, formerly of ABBA, Sweden’s infamous
pop quartet. When I stayed there a few weeks ago, above my bed was a huge
blow-up of a black and white photograph, depicting a dreamy-eyed young man
playing his violin, while seated beside a waterfall on a sunny day.
Walking through Stockholm – with its extraordinary
variety of home décor stores (this may explain why Tyler Brulee, the former
editor of Wallpaper magazine, recently bought a house here), it’s obvious
that Swedes are devoted to seasonal design, as well. I passed a fascinating
hour at Larsson Korgmakare, a family-owned business which for generations
has manufactured warm-weather rattan and bamboo furniture. And, I spent a
small fortune at Job’s fabric, makers of silkscreened linen such as their
best-selling pattern, “Sommar” or summer, which is a riot of peonies and
jonquils. 
Stockholm is a relatively compact city – most sections
of town can be reached in a brisk, half-hour’s walk. For longer distances,
Stockholm’s subway system is referred to as the “longest art gallery in the
world,” as its nearly 100 stations are each vibrantly decorated. The city
wasn’t bombed during World War II, so many centuries-old architecture is
perfectly intact. 
Several days later, I flew further south to the
Smalands, an area in Sweden known as the “Kingdom of Crystal.” I’d been
fascinated by Stockholm’s many displays of art glass, and was anxious to
tour factories where glass is still blown and shaped by hand. 